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Pakistan’s mango exports in hot water despite improved resources

KARACHI: The exporters have shown grave concerns over the decline in mango exports to Iran despite significant increase in resources and facilities, and held the Department of Plant Protection (DPP) responsible for failure in the implementation of their own policies.

“Ironically, with 29 hot water treatment plants, this year exports to Iran are standing just over 11,000 metric tonnes and the mango season is nearing to an end. Last year, Pakistan had exported 13,000 MT mangoes to Iran with the help of only one hot water treatment plant,”said leading mango exporter and Durrani Associates CEO Babar Durrani.

He said that this year, the exports started early from 20th May and by June 17th it touched the figure of over 8,000MT, since then, the DPP only managed to clear 3,000MT mangoes for export to Iran because of wrong policies and operational inefficiencies.“This is an alarming situation and the DPP must be held accountable for this mismanagement,” he added.

He said that as per the rules, DPP would issue a Phyto for export consignment only after testing and certifying that the mangoes being exported are free of diseases. “This is like a visa for fruit and vegetable exports, thus any interception due to presence of fruit fly larvae or any disease proves the incompetence of DPP,”he added.

Durrani said that it clearly depicts the inefficiency of DPP, which with 29 hot water treatment plants at its disposal could not manage to touch even the exports figures of the last year.

“Exports to Iran should have been at least doubled with the help of 28 new plants. Interestingly, more than 8,000MT exports of this year also are done by only two treatment plants, which have been barred from exports to Iran due to personal grudge and vested interests of the DPP director general (DG) to benefit only two plants with stakes of the officials, violating the rules and regulations in this regard. If not for DPP DG personal grudge, the exports must have been much more than this,” added Babar.

Pakistan is already falling short by 30,000MT of its total export target this year. Although DPP announced extending the export period till October to appease the government and to hide their negligence but the facts are different from their claims, as the industry experts believe that the export would end by mid September.

DPP imposed a self-ban of 10 days on mango exports after one consignment of mangoes to Netherlands and two to UK, which were certified by DPP being cleared of fruit fly and 9 other diseases, were intercepted by the concerned authorities due to presence of fruit fly.

“One of the consignments belonged to a plant that has the backing of DG, but instead of banning the company from exports, the DG stopped all the mango exports for 10 days to every country, and ironically, the said company was banned from exporting to UK only,”said Babar, adding that the action was taken to save the interest of one plant but this further damaged the exports and ensured that we would fall short of meeting the set target of 100,000 MT exports for 2015.

“This is high time that the government should intervene and launch an investigation why DPP is making false claims, giving false reports to high ups and covering its negligence, inefficiencies and corruption,” he added.

While "Flavor" is very subjective, and each country that grows mangoes is very nationalistic, these are the mango varieties that are the most sought after around the world because of sweetnesss (Brix) and demand.The Chaunsa has a Brix rating in the 22 degree level which is unheard of!Carabao claims to be the sweetest mango in the world and was able to register this in the Guiness book of world records.Perhaps it is time for a GLOBAL taste test ???

Mangaluru: Vagaries of nature is expected to take a toll on the production of King of Fruits - Mango - in Karnataka this year. A combination of failure of pre-monsoon showers at the flowering and growth stage and spike in temperature in mango growing belt of the state is expected to limit the total production of mango to an estimated 12 lakh tonnes in the current season as against 14 lakh tonnes in the last calendar year.

However, the good news for fruit lovers is that this could see price of mangoes across varieties decrease marginally by 2-3%. This is mainly on account of 'import' of the fruit from other mango-growing states in India, said M Kamalakshi Rajanna, chairperson, Karnataka State Mango Development and Marketing Corporation Ltd.

Karnataka is the third largest mango-growing state in India after Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Inaugurating a two-day Vasanthotsava organized by Shivarama Karantha Pilikula Nisargadhama and the Corporation at P…